You Had Me at Cougar by Terry Spear

Chapter 8

The next morning, Chet woke to see Ava leaning over him with a thermometer next to his forehead, checking his temperature. He smiled at her. He was feeling like his normal self and he was ready to tackle any mission. He realized just how much he didn't want to leave Yuma Town. As much as he liked working with all the CSF agents, Ava was the one who made him want to stay there longer.

"How are you feeling?" Ava asked as she made them eggs, ham, and toast for breakfast.

"Great. No fever, chills, no pain." He pulled his pants modestly down to show her the wound. "The wound is healing nicely."

She smiled. "Good. I won't have to have you drop your pants any longer to inspect your injury then."

"Not for that reason, anyway."

Smiling, she raised a brow.

"I mean, if we want to strip and shift and run as cougars. Which, now that I'm able to, I'm ready. Did you want to run?"

It was light out, but they didn't have to worry much about hunters in the area.

"Okay, sure, I would love that."

"Good." Chet called Leyton, "Hey, Ava and I are going for a cougar run. If you need me, we'll be back in a little while."

"We haven't found the bear yet, so enjoy your run. We can get with you later to make some plans to hunt him down."

"What about Jonathon's bear sleuth? Shouldn't they be the ones handling this?" Chet had wondered about that after they had offered their help.

"It's our territory. I believe he was afraid of infringing on our territory, should a bunch of bears suddenly start running through the area. But you're right. I need to verify why they aren't handling it."

Then they ended the call and Ava asked, "Are they wanting you to run with them instead?"

"No, not until later. I think Leyton is getting some clarification as to why Jonathon's own people aren't dealing with this."

"What are you thinking?" Ava asked.

"I wonder if they don't know about it. That something deeper is going on."

"Like?"

"Maybe his sister wants to be with the bear and it's just Jonathon who doesn't want her to be."

"Oh, a family feud. That would be awful. Especially if we involve ourselves when they need to handle the matter themselves."

"I agree."

"Are you ready to run?"

"I sure am."

“Wait, weren’t you supposed to see Dr. Kate first?” Ava asked.

He slipped his boxer briefs down to show her his wound again.

“Okay by me, but if you get worse again, it’s all your fault you didn’t have it checked out again.”

“She has real patients to see and doesn’t have time to waste with me every day. Besides, if I do get sick, it will be my fault for not going in to see her again.”

“All right, just remember that.”

They stripped out of their clothes, then shifted and ran through the condo to the cougar door. Then they bolted outside. He wondered, offhand, what the bear shifters did about leaving their homes if they wanted to run. How would they get out of them in a hurry? A couple of the ones up on the North Shore of Lake Superior had gone into one of the resort cabins through the cougar door, but as humans to get inside and then outside again. As bears, they would have been too big.

He and Ava ran through the woods and paused only to look up at a mountain of rocks, then both of them began the climb, leaping from one rock to another until they were at the top. He was glad they were cougars and could climb like this with ease. His wound wasn't bothering him at all, though when Ava looked at him with concern, he suspected she had been worried about it.

He just nuzzled her face to let her know he was good and that he was glad they were up here enjoying the view as cougars. She nuzzled him back, reciprocating the affection. Then they looked out across the land and saw the lake off in the distance, mountains, forests, the beauty of the area. He took it for granted, he realized, when he was running through it just for sport and not really seeing the vast splendor. With Ava at his side, he wanted to take a pause and enjoy all of it.

But then she saw something, heard something, her ears perked up, twitching one way and then the other, listening to whatever sound she had heard. He'd been concentrating on being with her and had missed hearing what she had heard. Then she bounded down the rocks and he tore off after her.

That's when he heard a cat snarl—a big cat—and he wondered how he'd missed it.

They ran together to help the cat—it was the reporter, Carl Nelson, who had been more recently turned—which had been a good thing for the residents of Yuma Town since he'd been looking for a story about them before he was turned.

When they reached the area, they realized a bear had treed him. Chet would have laughed, if he could have as a human, though the bear could be dangerous too. It was the same injured bear they'd seen before. What the hell was it doing in their territory and now treeing their cougars?

Ava glanced at Chet with a warning look not to shift and talk to the angry bear. He was sitting on his haunches, eyeing them warily. Carl wasn't moving from the tree.

Chet had to communicate with the bear. He just hoped that Carl and Ava would take the heat off him if the bear charged him once Chet shifted.

Chet shifted. "We need to know what's going on with you. If you and Jonathon have a beef between the two of you, we need to know that."

The bear grunted and shifted. The guy was big, six-four or so. "Jonathon is the one who is at fault in all this."

"He says you stole his sister away from him. Why not go to your sleuth to resolve this?" Chet glanced at Ava since she was the one who had seen the event in her premonition.

"He has lied about all of it. He doesn't have a sister. Just a brother. Jonathon and I have been squabbling over a she-bear."

That made sense.

"And that's why you haven't involved your sleuth?" Chet asked.

"Yeah, they tell us to deal with issues like this on our own."

In the bear's way, Chet suspected. "Okay, well, Jonathon solicited us to help track you after he turned us down at the beginning. I'll let the others know that this is an issue between you and the she-bear, but don't kill Jonathon in our territory or we'll have to deal with it." And they needed to verify if this bear was telling the truth. "I’m Chet Kensington, by the way, special agent with the Cougar Shifters' Force, CSF. We normally go after rogue cougar shifters."

"I'm Blue Bearsden. But this issue between Jonathon and me needs to be settled between the two of us, no one else."

"Where's the she-bear?"

"Ursula Brownstone has vanished. I thought Jonathon had her, and he thinks I have her, but I don't. We got into a fight a couple of days ago, and he got the best of me."

"Do you think she doesn't want to have anything to do with the two of you?"

"No way. I'm sure she thinks if she's out of sight, we'll cool down over her."

"Will you?" Chet asked.

"What do you think?"

"No." If Chet was fighting with another cougar over dating Ava, he would feel the same way. Though he hoped he would go about it in a better way. He was sure everyone in their town would shame him and another cougar into doing so if they both were too hot-headed to see the truth. Why wouldn't the sleuth do that? "Are you sure she's not in trouble since neither of you know where she is?"

"No. She threatened to disappear. I just thought she was telling me that so I wouldn't fight Jonathon."

"Why did you tree Carl?"

Blue looked up at the tree where Carl still sat, not making a move to come down and join them.

"He was chasing after me and what was I supposed to do? So I treed the pesky cat."

Chet raised a brow at Carl. He snarled in response, sounding annoyed that the bear got the better of him.

"Are we good?" Blue asked Chet.

"Yeah, for now, sure. We won't interfere in dating squabbles between bears unless someone is killed, then that's another matter." Chet shifted back.

The bear did too, inclined his head and ambled off. When he was far enough away, Carl finally came down out of the tree.

Carl greeted them, looking thankful Chet had taken care of the bear, but Carl looked a little foolish that Ava was still standing near Chet and hadn't escaped to the tree like he had done.

Then Chet nuzzled Ava and she nodded. They took off for home so he could call in what he'd learned from Blue.

Carl ran behind them, as if he was ashamed to run beside them, or maybe he was just cognizant that Chet had been running with Ava as though they were now a couple, and he didn't want to intrude. But he wasn't going back to town on his own, rather, sticking with them in the event they ran into any more angry bears.

When they finally were near town, Carl ran off in a different direction and Chet figured he was going for his clothes wherever he had left them. Chet and Ava finally reached her place and inside, they dressed.

"I'm glad you heard Carl snarling. I didn't right away," Chet said. "So what's the deal about the sister/girlfriend angle?"

"I guess when I saw a she-bear in the vision, I was sure it was a sister, not a girlfriend because Jonathon said it was his sister."

"Was Blue lying? Or was Jonathon?" Chet slipped his shirt over his head.

"I'm not a mind-reader like Bridget is. She didn’t say for sure." Ava pulled on her shoes. "I knew you were going to shift in front of the bear again."

"Yeah, well, I knew you wouldn't jump into the tree for safety. I had to learn who the bear was and his side of the story if it had to do with Jonathon. Also, why he had chased your reporter up the tree."

She laughed. "I have to admit, it was funny. I wonder if Carl was looking for a story. He was doing such a great job baking for Mrs. Fitzgerald, but once he had the opportunity to go back to being a reporter, he jumped at the chance to work for Roger and Milly Haverton. He's a good reporter, now that he's a cougar like us and not trying to get a story about us that would tell the world what we really are."

"I'm calling Leyton to let him know what the story is—according to Blue."

"I'm going to make some iced tea. Do you want some tea or something else?" Ava headed into the kitchen.

"Water would be good." Then he called Leyton and once he had him on the phone, he said, "Ava and I went for a run and we ran into the wounded bear again." He told him all about it and then added, "I'm still not sure whose story is true." Then he mentioned the bear treeing Carl.

Leyton laughed.